BLYTH Spartans are sweating on the fitness of five players, all of whom missed Saturday’s 4-1 FA Trophy defeat at Witton Albion, for tonight’s FA Cup replay at Workington.

BLYTH Spartans are sweating on the fitness of five players, all of whom missed Saturday’s 4-1 FA Trophy defeat at Witton Albion, for tonight’s FA Cup replay at Workington.

The second qualifying round tie finished 1-1 at Croft Park, and Blyth are hoping the likes of Robbie Dale, Joe Kendrick and Phil Airey will return at Borough Park.

Spartans were also without central defenders Jordan Mellish and Carl Jones at Witton, who cruised to victory in Cheshire. It was a poor performance from Blyth’s makeshift side as Witton scored three second-half goals after breaking through in the 13th minute.

“We’ve played Witton twice at their place now and they are the best team we have faced this season, but it was still a poor result,” said assistant manager Paddy Atkinson.

“We haven’t been able to field the same side yet due to injuries and we’re still rebuilding while it was virtually the same Witton side we faced on the opening day.

“There were a number of players missing at Witton. That gave a chance to others, but we played really poorly.

“When we’re on our game we are good, but when we’re not we are poor and we’ve got to find a level of consistency.

“Hopefully we’ll have a few players back tonight. Workington are in the Conference North and beat Hinckley on Saturday, but we know what to expect.

“We’ll go there in a positive frame of mind looking to win the game and progress to the next round and an away tie at Barwell Town.”

New signing Daryll Donnelly scored Blyth’s consolation goal in injury time at Witton, whose manager Brian Pritchard said: “We outplayed Blyth in every way. It was annoying to concede so late on, but it’s hard to find any other fault in a display as good as that.”